The purpose of this study was to understand the ways in which three parents of students with disabilities and three public school campus administrators negotiated dilemmas through discourse during Admission, Review, and Dismissal (ARD) meetings in a South Texas public school district. The participants in this study included the stakeholders in ARD…

The current national average tenure for superintendents is between 2.75 and 4.00 years. Since the organizational chain of command in Texas places the human resources management of the superintendent in the hands of elected school board members, it is imperative that superintendents understand the factors that contribute to their tenure. The study…

Notwithstanding their potential for novel approaches to language teaching and learning, Virtual Worlds (VWs) present numerous technological and pedagogical challenges that require new paradigms if the language learning experience and outcomes are to be successful. In this presentation, we argue that the notions of presence and affordance, together…

In response to the changing demands of the U.S. healthcare system and the needs of the nursing profession, the Institute of Medicine, in collaboration with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, spearheaded a two-year initiative to develop recommendations for the future of nursing. Discussions of these recommendations within nursing education led to…

Reflective learning, a practice carrying relatively high educational value, has been with us for some time. Its popularity has grown to the extent that it is often adopted unquestioningly by educational practitioners. However, there are some important questions to be asked in relation to reflective practice. In reality, its impact on improved and…

This current generation of students, known as the Millennial Generation, has a propensity toward multi-tasking and a history of structured and tightly filled days. Reflection may not be viewed as productive and as conducive to learning as other "tasks" and thus may be neglected. However, by employing a methodology (photography) that…

This paper explores preliminary results of a pilot study whose purpose was to document, through an oral history narrative, the personal and work experiences of a female artist and social entrepreneur who is legally blind. These experiences included the challenges that the research participant has experienced in the U.S. as a woman with an…

Much current debate in 21st century education centers on the relevance of the humanities because of the emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines and their role in workforce preparation. For the educators the question becomes, What can the humanities offer students in the 21st century? This is the generation that…

This paper discusses the benefits and challenges of video as a tool for supporting and enhancing peer feedback and reflection. The analysis draws on key arguments from relevant literature in combination with the author's own experiences of producing and using video recordings of peer feedback sessions, presentations and personal reflections, and…

During the course of the last century, a number of historical instances of unethical human research have occurred, and risen to the forefront of the social imagination. The atrocities of the European and Pacific Holocausts, the tragic 1932-1972 United States Public Health Service Syphilis Studies at Tuskegee, concomitant with the 1946-48 unethical…

What picture of schoolwork do we obtain if we take a close look at everyday classroom activities and consider what students and teachers do and say about them? This is the basic focus of the study reported here which examines a teaching and learning practice called "own work" ("eget arbete") in the context of primary classroom…

Master teacher Lisa Morris invites you to share her secrets of success with writer's workshops. After years of experimenting with the workshop model, she has developed the most effective ways to apply it in the classroom, yielding higher test scores and increased student engagement. Through practical, step-by-step instruction, Morris demonstrates…

While by and large urban public schools continue to not serve the needs of all of the students in their communities, there are some school principals who are creating educational equity for all of their students and deserve to be called social justice leaders. This study aimed to expand the field of school leadership studies and focus on social…

The concept of reflective thinking as a precursor for incorporating critical thinking has been not been adequately researched. Most research has not given any effective strategies on how to incorporate these two concepts. There is a constant need to incorporate critical thinking into the classroom without much success. This study will attempt to…

In the two decades since the introduction of the Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics (NCTM, 1991) describing effective mathematics instruction, researchers have found U.S. teachers still lack the ability to foster productive mathematical discourse. Three instructional practices are key to teachers' ability to support rich…